Free Photoshop Brushes (Retro Photoshop)
It is not true that retro or vintage designs are outdated and unattractive. Designers can actually come up with a design that is both usable and decorative using a successful and representative styles from the past. Vintage art has been very successful because it has a wider reach since it is being appreciated by both the young generation and those who were lucky enough to experience living in the 40s,50s and 60s. Retro designs also create a feeling of nostalgic and bring back memories from the near past.
Using retro or “old” style also makes a design very unique and appealing. That’s why we see more and more designers use this element in designing websites both corporate and for personal blogs or portfolio and even for print materials.
So why not start using the vintage or retro look in your designs as well? To help you get started, here, I am posting some free but very useful and high-resolution sets of retro-styled Photoshop brushes. From circles to stars to vintage appliances, there are plenty of brushes to choose from in this roundup. I hope you will find something that can be of use to you.
1. 40 Retro Dynamic Brushes
Author: ardcor
Description: This set has 240 dynamically generating retro brushes that are mostly circular. These brushes are free to use for personal projects. These brushes are compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS and higher versions.
2. Retro Photoshop Brush Set
Author: PSD Nation
Description: This retro photoshop brush pack is composed of 18 ultra high-resolution brushes (at 1,500 by 1500 pixels each), allowing you to create large, detailed artwork with no problems. You may use these brushes for whatever purpose, commercial and non-commercial projects alike.
3. Photoshop Extra Large Urban Brush
Author: Enigma-Design
Description: This brush pack contains 9 brushes with resolution of 2500×2500 pixels each, making it a perfect choice for large projects. Also included in this pack are the PNG files which you could use outside of Photoshop. You may use these brushes for both personal and commercial projects. However, the use of these brushes for anything pornographic, hateful or racial is highly discouraged. Brushes should work with Photoshop not older than Photoshop CS version.
4. Retro Vectors Brushes
Author:redheadstock
Description: This Photoshop brush set is composed of different retro-styled vectors, including halftones, circles, squares, diamonds, wavy lines, and many more. All brushes are high resolution, with the average size being approximately 1800 pixels. The brushes are compatible with Photoshop 7 and newer vesions, Photoshop Elements 2 and later versions, and GIMP 2.2.6+
5. US Military Ranks Brushes 1
Author: redheadstock
Description: There are 34 Photoshop brushes in this set which include the different United States military ranks–Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines, Navy. Please read the text file included in the zipped download folder to find out what brush corresponds to what rank, in case you’re not sure which is which. These are all high resolution, with average size being 1850 pixels. These brushes should work with Photoshop 7+, Photoshop Elements 2+, GIMP 2.2.6+
6. Retro Funk Set 2
Author: ardcor
Description: For a great retro look and feel, try these dynamicall generated circular brushes from ardcor. The set includes 44 brushes that you can use with Adobe Photoshop CS, CS2 ,and CS3.
7. Scrappin Cop Funky Retro Circles
Author: debh945
Description: This brush set includes some really big funky circles and several small little circles. Total file size of these brushes is 9.3 MB. Free for personal use. File size is 9.3 MB
8. Magno
Author: absolutbeginner
Description: This brush set is made out of different materials including old technical books and old tape recorder.
9. Retro Stars
Author: SUDDS
Description: This brush set consists of 10 retro star brushes. These are compatible with Photoshop CS and higher versions. The total file size is only 156 KB.
10. Retro Frames
Author: punksafetypin
Description: These set includes 9 brushes of different frames in various shapes that you could use to give your photos a retro feel and look. Since this set is made with Photoshop CS3, an image pack is included just in case you are using an older version of the program.
11. That 70s Girls
Author: punksafetypin
Description: The pack includes 10 different images of girls from the 70s era. This brush set is intended for Photoshop 7 and should also work with newer versions of the program. In case you want to use this with an older Photoshop version and these brushes don’t work for you or if you are using a different software, then checkout the image pack included in the zipped download folder.
12. Vintage Models
Author: punksafetypin
Description: The pack includes 11 different images of women wearing 70s fashion. This brush set is intended for Photoshop 7 and should also work with newer versions of the program. In case you want to use this with an older Photoshop version and these brushes don’t work for you or if you are using a different software, then checkout the image pack included in the zipped download folder.
13. Retro Dots
Author: twistedswanton
Description: This set includes nine (9) high-resolution brushes of things like banners, wallpaper, signatures, among others. The archived pack that you can download for free includes the .abr brush file and a folder containing the image in PNG of each brush. You may use the images instead if you are using Photoshop version that’s lower than version 7.
14. Disco Stars
Author: Mephotos
Description: This set includes 9 retro vector disco star that you may use as brushes in Photoshop. The total file size of these brushes is 1.3 MB. Free for non-commercial use only.
15. Retro Brushes
Author: SkullsXroses
Description: These brushes are created using Photoshop Elements 2. The brush pack includes 40 brushes, with file size of 8.3 MB. Free for personal use.
16. Retro Brushes
Author: vwake
Description: This set has 30 brushes composed of images of vintage cars, people and other elements taken from the 40s, 50s, and 60s era. These brushes are compatible with Photoshop 7 and newer versions.
17. retro circle brushes
Author: chokingonstatic
Description: This set includes four (4) brushes in green-orange-brown combination that you can use freely (commercial and otherwise). Total file size of these brushes is only 14.1 KB.
18. 1940 Cosmopolitan Brushes
Author: moolis
Description: This set has 48 brushes composed of images taken from from a vintage 40’s Cosmopolitan. These brushes are compatible to use with Photoshop 7 and higher versions of teh software.
19. Vintage Camera Set
Author: Brushes500
Description: This set contains 9 big brushes of old and slightly newer cameras: 2 Agfa cameras (both around 40-50 years old), a Holga, 2 Polaroid cameras and a Kodak Brownie (about 40 years old).
20. Retro Brushes
Author: absolutbeginner
Description: This set contains 17 brushes of retro images mostly about money that you can use for your designs for free. little gallery of retro images mostly about money, but you’ll find some brushes about pin-up, celebration and danceThese brushes are compatible to use with Photoshop CS and later versions of Photoshop.
21. Vintage TV Sets
Author: Brushes.500.org
Description:This set contains 8 Photoshop brushes created using images of different kinds of vintage TV sets.
22. Retro Brushes
Author:priesteres-stockThese brushes were created using Photoshop CS2. Total file size of the brushes is 1.9 MB. Make sure you read the terms of use first before using these brushes. 
23. WallPaper Sized Brushes No.09
Author: mutsie
Description: This set contains high-resolution intended for making wallpapers. The brushes were created using Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0. The zipped download folder include the brush file (.abr) and also includes an image-pack(JPEG) Size. Total file size is 2.2 MB.
24. Old Signs
Author: Rubel Creative, LLC
Description: This set includes 10 Photoshop brushes created using images of old signages such as road signs, car wash signs, motel signs, etc.
Tags: Designer, Free themes, Photoshop, PSD templates, Theme Layout
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February 12th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Hey there! Thanks for the mention. As per my terms of use on dA and on my website, if you could send people to http://www.obsidiandawn.com for the brush sets instead of dA, it would be much appreciated! Thanks, regardless.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Nice site!